The impending support of XM weather is the single feature that is pushing me to FF/iPad now. Once implemented, it wiill allow me to retire an old & heavy ruggedized tablet PC that displays the weather but isn't integrated into the maps very well.

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I also have access to a receiver. Well airplane co-owner has one. As does anyone else who did XM weather years ago with ChartCase.

The adapter to get from that receiver to the iPad has been out for a few months now, which is why I was thinking FF would announce support at OSH. This much touted "rapid development cycle", isn't pointed at the things 80% of their users will utilize.

Need to apply the 80/20 rule. Yes, I agree that they got free press from Aspen. If that's their goal, versus deploying at the very least a replacement for the Garmin units... They're not even to that point yet, still piles of features behind where ChartCase was years ago, and they're playing house with the big avionics kids.

Transferring a flight plan is a big huge yawn when they don't even have TFRs depicted on the charts yet, nor weather, nor vertical side-views of airspace or ceilings from METAR data, nor overlaid wind barbs, nor terrain avoidance, nor usable timers... the list is still pretty long.

The old excuse was that it was never meant to be a navigation tool, just a chart replacement, last year.

I get the distinct impression the FF leadership fly in aircraft already equipped with on-board IFR GPSs and Weather. Thus, low priority. Getting their flight plan into the PFD took precedence.

They need to think harder about what features are needed to fly behind the iPad as a sole-device, VFR.

I'll keep sending money. Just hoping they get their priorities straightened out. There were at least two "hungry" companies I saw in other booths that had already matched the early feature-set that took FF a year, and one was only two months old.

It's going to be a big year for iPad software competition I think. WingX is ahead in a number of areas already and these other companies are going to push hard from behind/below. One had integrated Google Earth airport imagery, another had integrated airport diagrams that overlaid the chart opaquely.

Great ideas. And "universal" ones for most pilots. The Aspen thing helps how many FF customers?

It's not good business to come to OSH with the only big announcement being for a minority of the overall customer base.

If I had an Aspen, I might care. Since I don't, it looks like a distraction to me from the perspective of a "core" customer.

I also have access to a receiver. Well airplane co-owner has one. As does anyone else who did XM weather years ago with ChartCase.

Yeah, but you can't plug it into an iPad...

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The adapter to get from that receiver to the iPad has been out for a few months now, which is why I was thinking FF would announce support at OSH.

No, it isn't. It was announced a few months ago. According to their web site, it's shipping today. (We'll see.)

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This much touted "rapid development cycle", isn't pointed at the things 80% of their users will utilize.

Sorry, I call BS. I know you want in-flight weather - So do I. But what good does it do to show up at OSH saying "Hey everyone, we've got in-flight weather, as long as you buy hardware that isn't available yet"?????

Quote from a ForeFlighter at OSH: "In-flight weather is a top priority." Patience, grasshopper - You'll see it very soon.

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They're not even to that point yet, still piles of features behind where ChartCase was years ago, and they're playing house with the big avionics kids.

If all you want is features... Go elsewhere. Much like Apple, ForeFlight wants to make sure that when they do implement features, they do so in a way that works really well, rather than just throwing it in there so they can check a box in a brochure. To quote Aviation Consumer, who recently named ForeFlight the "Best App" in their "Gear of the Year" awards - And frankly, Aviation Consumer has NOT generally been kind to ForeFlight:

"This app is as strong for what it does as for what it doesn’t, which is to overreach with a bunch of useless features most owners would never use. It’s a good, easy-to-use general flight planner, chart manager and weather getter. It does these functions superbly, without stumbling all over itself trying to do everything else. In app writing, restraint is to be admired."

So - weather will be here soon, I'm sure... And it will be done *well*. That's the most important thing of all.

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I get the distinct impression the FF leadership fly in aircraft already equipped with on-board IFR GPSs and Weather. Thus, low priority. Getting their flight plan into the PFD took precedence.

None of them have Aspen units. AFAIK, Jason is the only aircraft owner of them all (SR22). They're just like you and me.

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I'll keep sending money. Just hoping they get their priorities straightened out. There were at least two "hungry" companies I saw in other booths that had already matched the early feature-set that took FF a year, and one was only two months old.

I'm curious who you think they are - I took a look at a lot of apps, and I still don't think anyone has come close to ForeFlight's combination of features *and* ease of use. GlobalNavSource has XM weather, but they don't even do any flight planning at all. Flight Guide has a pretty nice app except that it appears all of the airport data is on one PDF/image file, the type is really small and you have to zoom it to get anything useful. etc etc etc...

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One had integrated Google Earth airport imagery

Only that which you load by looking at it manually on the ground.

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If I had an Aspen, I might care. Since I don't, it looks like a distraction to me from the perspective of a "core" customer.

If you had two things you wanted to get done before OSH, one of which would take a day, maybe two and make a fairly big splash, and the other one of which was going to take some significant time and be a primary feature for many users in the years ahead, would you not take the time to get the second one right rather than push it out the door for OSH and potentially ruin your app's major advantage?

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I still cannot swallow paying almost a grand for an XM WX receiver (which is what they all were running last time I looked). And that's before paying the subscription fee.

Yeah, no kidding. That's why I'm going to wait for ADS-B. Even if the receiver is $1000, that's only 20 months of XM weather subscription and I'm sure I'll have it for that long, at least. IMO, compared to ADS-B, a free XM receiver is still a fairly bad deal.

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Sorry, I call BS. I know you want in-flight weather - So do I. But what good does it do to show up at OSH saying "Hey everyone, we've got in-flight weather, as long as you buy hardware that isn't available yet"?????

Isn't the Aspen announcement based on hardware that isn't available yet? I think his point is a pretty good one - in-flight weather is something I suspect far more of their customers care about than Aspen connectivity. They'd certainly go a long way to selling me a license (and an iPad to go with it!), though I'm a little less enthusiastic now that I see that the receivers cost more than the iPad itself.

Still, I'm not knocking the Aspen thing - I think it's an interesting idea, and I'm glad Aspen is still kicking. The new avionics news has been disconcertingly dominated by Garmin of late.

I still cannot swallow paying almost a grand for an XM WX receiver (which is what they all were running last time I looked). And that's before paying the subscription fee.

And yet, I fly a rental that has XM weather (even shows TFRs as I found out). I had a Dick Carl's realization: want to fly? Become rich first. It's pretty terrible in some ways, but there's no cheap flying anymore. I knew a guy at KTCY, a carryover from 1970s, who had a Taylorcraft. He clinged to that bird through unemployment and honestly I had big concerns about airworthiness of it. Better nothing that this, IMHO. Or maybe a Rogallo wing.

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Sorry, I call BS. I know you want in-flight weather - So do I. But what good does it do to show up at OSH saying "Hey everyone, we've got in-flight weather, as long as you buy hardware that isn't available yet"?????

Quote from a ForeFlighter at OSH: "In-flight weather is a top priority." Patience, grasshopper - You'll see it very soon.

Heh... I really thought it was available. Going by your research today, I guess it's not yet. I hadn't asked the company or checked the website because hardware without software is useless... just as you point out.

If the little box that claimed to be available were true, then my comments about getting weather done for OSH would have stood -- but if the box really doesn't work yet or is vaporware, they did all they could.

They're really hampered by Apple on the WX stuff. Most of the XM WX receivers have Bluetooth in them already... too bad they can't utilize it. Or a bog-standard serial port which should be a complete no-brainer on any other OS. It should be a cable from the receiver to the iPad, and done by now... but Apple's not playing.

Typical Apple. They use the same excuse "we don't release it if it's not perfect", and in this case... they're dead wrong on GPS and other BT data devices. They're just virtual serial ports... it's not that hard to add support for such things in the OS.

Conversely, that company making the little converter box is dead, in one announcement, if Apple'd just allow standard BT virtual serial port connections to applications via the OS. It's not exactly rocket science to allow a $25 hocky puck GPS send NMEA data to an application these days.

Meanwhile, it's making Dual some good money though -- $99 for a GPS that cost $25 from any other source... just to have that little "Apple" switch in the unit.

(Must admit, the Dual does work well. Doug tested his all the way home in the Yukon with FF and never less than 10m accuracy throughout the entire drive. The Dual App is awful and loses connectivity and shows inaccurate battery life data if you don't disconnect and reconnect to the GPS once in a while, though. Somewhat buggy. Crashed a few times too. The inability in the OS to see if Location Services API is using the Dual or the internal AGPS is a serious liability too, but that's an OS/API thing, not FF or Dual's fault. Dual battery dies, you can't tell... other than the accuracy will start to wander around and that's not a very good indicator. It also makes the iPhone truly useable with FF in-flight. We did some comparisons between the iPad's GPS and the iPhone's GPS on the two hour flight to KLBF and the iPhone was awful. We'll have to try again with his iPhone linked to his Dual. Bet it works perfectly, judging by the behavior in the Yukon, "flying low". Doug really likes the iPhone in the RAM mount versus the size of the iPad. I like the size of the iPad and the yoke mount. Interesting how different folks like different depictions of the same info.)

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Originally Posted by flyingcheesehead

If all you want is features... Go elsewhere.

Careful what you wish for. I'm really tempted to buy WingX for a comparison. They're both so relatively cheap (compared to putting an Aspen and GPS in our panel), it's real easy to play with both. Once WingX has a "foothold" on the device...

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Originally Posted by flyingcheesehead

Much like Apple, ForeFlight wants to make sure that when they do implement features, they do so in a way that works really well, rather than just throwing it in there so they can check a box in a brochure.

... [snipped Aviation Consumer stuff for brevity] ...

So - weather will be here soon, I'm sure... And it will be done *well*. That's the most important thing of all.

I'll call your BS and raise you a BS on that one. FF has slapped out features, and I'll prove it...

If you're saying that FF's current depiction of TFR's is "done well" and they held off releasing it until it was great, I'm going to come beat you with a stick.

Same with AIRMETs, SIGMETs, etc.

I'm a bit jaded to that particular phrase. Nothing against FF or the fans personally. I just don't ever believe that phrase.

It's not a good plan to say that type of thing too often and then have stuff like that nappy TFR depiction in the released software, though. Kinda blows the "story".

Reading up on the latest on ADS-B last night, since we're also chatting up ADS-B in this thread a bit... there were some "OMG... those idiots are already screwing up the standards?!" moments...

The FAA appears to be doing to ADS-B what U.S. Carriers did to cellular standards. A separate 900 MHz system incompatible with the rest of the world? Grrrreat... top-notch brainpower there... and still no encryption, authentication, or security...

But that's a different thread... I guess.

Back on point... TFR depiction is awful, so don't give me that "they always hold off to release great stuff" sentiment/tired old line from every software company ever to grace the planet...

As a sysadmin I know better. They release what they release. Some of it's good, some of it's crap. Software is always like that. The TFR depictions are definitely crap. You can't use 'em to really avoid a TFR or fly around one to save your ... ticket.

Heh... I really thought it was available. Going by your research today, I guess it's not yet. I hadn't asked the company or checked the website because hardware without software is useless... just as you point out.

And vice versa, too.

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They're really hampered by Apple on the WX stuff. Most of the XM WX receivers have Bluetooth in them already... too bad they can't utilize it. Or a bog-standard serial port which should be a complete no-brainer on any other OS. It should be a cable from the receiver to the iPad, and done by now... but Apple's not playing.

Y'know, theoretically the camera kit (which gives you a USB port) should work with a USB WxWorx box - All you need is the proper software. Though Apple calls it the "Camera" connection kit, it's just a USB port - A USB hard drive with images on it will show up fine in the Photos app, USB microphones work with audio apps, etc. So I wonder why ForeFlight couldn't support the WxWorx USB box directly. Or maybe they can...

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Typical Apple. They use the same excuse "we don't release it if it's not perfect", and in this case... they're dead wrong on GPS and other BT data devices.

Not sure what you're getting at here... There are bluetooth GPS devices that work with the iPad, including the Dual that you mentioned in your post.

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I'll call your BS and raise you a BS on that one. FF has slapped out features, and I'll prove it...

If you're saying that FF's current depiction of TFR's is "done well" and they held off releasing it until it was great, I'm going to come beat you with a stick.

I can't say FF's current depiction of TFR's is done well because FF does not depict TFR's. Unless, of course, you're talking about under the Imagery section, and that's not FF's depiction... It's someone else's depiction that they're simply feeding through, as is everything in the Imagery section.

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Reading up on the latest on ADS-B last night, since we're also chatting up ADS-B in this thread a bit... there were some "OMG... those idiots are already screwing up the standards?!" moments...

The FAA appears to be doing to ADS-B what U.S. Carriers did to cellular standards. A separate 900 MHz system incompatible with the rest of the world? Grrrreat... top-notch brainpower there... and still no encryption, authentication, or security...

Yeah. No disagreement there. Why they decided to have two separate frequencies/systems is beyond me...

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We talked about this at the show a lot. For VFR, if you already own an iPAD the foreflight does make a lot of of sense. It will be a bit more than chart subscriptions if you don't go all over the place, and might save you money if you do. If you don't own one, the purchase price sours the deal. You should have your eyes out the window VFR anyway, and not be looking at some gadget. IFR, the thing sounds like a godsend. That's a lot of charts, and you have to have them all because you never know where you have to divert.

Yeah, no kidding. That's why I'm going to wait for ADS-B. Even if the receiver is $1000, that's only 20 months of XM weather subscription and I'm sure I'll have it for that long, at least. IMO, compared to ADS-B, a free XM receiver is still a fairly bad deal.

Thats fine until you end up somewhere there is no ADSB. Still a lot of uncovered territory. XM has features that ADSB doesn't, if the programs include them.

Would love to save the money, but gotta say that I've found XM WX invaluable on some of my long trips. Including one last weekend.

via Tapatalk

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Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear. - Amelia Earhart

Not sure what you're getting at here... There are bluetooth GPS devices that work with the iPad, including the Dual that you mentioned in your post.

It was pointing out that standard BT GPS devices don't work with Apple's iOS, and companies like Dual had to come along and make a device with a physical switch on the bottom that says "Apple / NMEA"... or whatever the other side says on theirs, just to meet up with Apple's "greatness".

Those "greatness" comments just trip the BS meter/alarm in any IT pro's head... not your fault. You actually have real enthusiasm for them, and probably rightly so. I've heard all heard those lines so often from other vendors that they're not only meaningless, they're actually a negative sign that development is slowing/stuck/broken somehow. (No, I don't think that's the case with FF yet.)

You just sound too much like a software sales guy.

I don't know a single IT pro that trusts anything a sales droid says about software releases. Not your fault... you genuinely mean it... it's just that you're using phrases that trigger the immediate "run away, run away" response from anyone who's followed software development for a couple of decades.

"We only release when it's great." Yeah yeah, tell me that you're madly hiring developers and writing specs, and testing code, and doing real work... before using that old tired line on me.

I've been the guy who *had* to use that line before, and I know it's not usually the real story. Using that line on me just damages credibility.

In this case, I know you personally so I know it's real -- but if I didn't and read that line I'd think, "Wow. Trouble. Avoid."

As I said in PM, my view of the software biz is that, "All software sucks. FF just sucks less than anything else out there right now."

There's actually good scientific reasoning behind that attitude, too. One study showed that for every 5-15 lines of code written, another bug is introduced. At one former employer, the bug numbers started at 10000, and numbered into the millions.

Trust me, I like ForeFlight. I'm just not particularly fond of marketing speak used by software companies. If it's not running and in my hands, it doesn't exist -- even if it's in your hands and in beta. Beta stuff can be pulled.

Software is god-awful unforgiving. "You're only as good as your last public release," is oh-so-true.

Yeah, no kidding. That's why I'm going to wait for ADS-B. Even if the receiver is $1000, that's only 20 months of XM weather subscription and I'm sure I'll have it for that long, at least. IMO, compared to ADS-B, a free XM receiver is still a fairly bad deal.

Given how bad a deal ADS-B is, you must have a really low opinion of XM.

ADS-B starts with A as in Apple. So in Kent's mind it has to be better than XM which starts with X like XP.

I thought it was A as in Android

__________________zaitcev.mee.nu
"They truly appreciated the freedom that GA allowed them, and looked askance at a lot of the ironclad rules and regulations that we kowtow to today." -- Jay Honeck, 2011

We talked about this at the show a lot. For VFR, if you already own an iPAD the foreflight does make a lot of of sense. It will be a bit more than chart subscriptions if you don't go all over the place, and might save you money if you do. If you don't own one, the purchase price sours the deal. You should have your eyes out the window VFR anyway, and not be looking at some gadget. IFR, the thing sounds like a godsend. That's a lot of charts, and you have to have them all because you never know where you have to divert.

For VFR pilots who stay very local, it won't pay for itself - For IFR pilots, well, even if you don't go anywhere far away, the ForeFlight subscription costs less than keeping one sectional, one low enroute, one A/FD, and one book of approach plates up to date for a year so it's a steal.

But yes, eyes out the window - Except since you're mainly replacing charts and A/FD, you should look at the gadget no more often than you'd look at the paper products in the cockpit. IMO, of course.

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Originally Posted by wsuffa

Thats fine until you end up somewhere there is no ADSB. Still a lot of uncovered territory.

There's a lot more coverage than I thought there was until recently. In the ConUS, there are only 6 Centers that aren't covered yet (Salt Lake City, Denver, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Memphis, Fort Worth, and Houston - But Houston does have it offshore). I fly in Chicago Center's territory, and the other one I fly to most often is Minneapolis, and they're both covered.

I think that by the time the hardware is a bit more reasonably priced and the software support is there, that the coverage will probably be there too.

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XM has features that ADSB doesn't, if the programs include them.

Such as? I haven't seen a good comparison of the two, is there one available online anywhere?

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Would love to save the money, but gotta say that I've found XM WX invaluable on some of my long trips. Including one last weekend.

It's great, no doubt... But I was under the impression that ADS-B would make XM WX pretty much obsolete.

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'cept I'm the world's worst salesman. I cannot sell a product I don't truly believe in myself. I can sell a Garmin GPS or glass cockpit, I can sell an iPad, I can sell a Lightspeed headset or a Diamond Star. I can't sell you Windows, or a netbook, or a Narco radio, or numerous other things because I think they're crap and I'm just not a good liar.

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"We only release when it's great." Yeah yeah, tell me that you're madly hiring developers and writing specs, and testing code, and doing real work... before using that old tired line on me.

Meh... You've gotta remember, I'm not a salesman. I'm a beta tester. It's my job to say "This is crap, you can't release it yet." I make roughly an equal number of bug reports and usability comments to ForeFlight, and if a feature makes it into the product that works poorly (or doesn't work at all) then I have failed.

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Trust me, I like ForeFlight. I'm just not particularly fond of marketing speak used by software companies. If it's not running and in my hands, it doesn't exist -- even if it's in your hands and in beta. Beta stuff can be pulled.

Oh, I know that all too well. That's why we don't talk about things that haven't been released yet. The whole world would want them NOW and if they're released too early, they might suck and that's not acceptable.

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Software is god-awful unforgiving. "You're only as good as your last public release," is oh-so-true.

Yup. And I still think that by that metric, ForeFlight is doing quite well.

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Given how bad a deal ADS-B is, you must have a really low opinion of XM.

Why do you think ADS-B is a bad deal? Even right now, the hardware (for a portable device, as we seem to be mostly discussing in this thread) is about $200 more expensive for ADS-B than XM, and that difference is made up in 4 months of an XM subscription.

Granted, I'd like the hardware to cost about 1/4 or 1/3 of what it does now, but... Well, this is aviation.

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There's a lot more coverage than I thought there was until recently. In the ConUS, there are only 6 Centers that aren't covered yet (Salt Lake City, Denver, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Memphis, Fort Worth, and Houston - But Houston does have it offshore). I fly in Chicago Center's territory, and the other one I fly to most often is Minneapolis, and they're both covered.

Well, I do Indy, Memphis, and KC often enough. FW and Houston occasionally. And the ADSB coverage is not 'to the ground' in most places. That was important launching off of MGY a week ago as I'd been watching a pretty nice array of storms before the preflight - made a difference as to accepting a direct routing (where the storms were) or a longer route north of the storms.

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I think that by the time the hardware is a bit more reasonably priced and the software support is there, that the coverage will probably be there too.

See note about ground coverage. BUT, that's the nice thing about having a choice of services - you can choose to meet your needs, as can I. As one's flying changes, one can choose a different alternative.

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Such as? I haven't seen a good comparison of the two, is there one available online anywhere?

Now I haven't seen what "regional" weather looks like from ADS-B compared to the mosaic provided on XM. I've been pleased with what I've seen on XM.

Aside from radar and the TAF/METAR/TFRs, I do use pretty clouds/cloud tops fairly often. Even with the Stormscope, having the strikes displayed over a wide area is nice. SCITs are of mixed value, though they can show very intense storms. Having fronts displayed is a long-range tool. On the FAA side, SUA is a plus - but most of my flying is IFR so it's not as big of a plus for me as for a VFR pilot. The jury is out for me on NOTAMs - the NOTAM system is such a mess that I really wouldn't want to try and decipher a long list in the cockpit (OTOH, if FAA enforcement ever says that not having them live in the cockpit is "not having full information", then that would have to be revisited).

So it's all about the flying you do. For me, XM is a more complete picture. I wish they'd make icing part of the cheaper packages, but it is what it is.

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It's great, no doubt... But I was under the impression that ADS-B would make XM WX pretty much obsolete.

Obsolete: I don't think ADS-B really makes XM obsolete.

Price sensitive folks may go ADS-B - those who fly longer distances may find the additional XM features worthwhile. There was some scuttlebut about FAA not supporting weather in the long-term, but I think the aviation community has dissuaded them from that plan.... it's a sweetener to get folks to convert to ADS-B.

All bets are off if we get user fees, however.....

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Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear. - Amelia Earhart